Known to all the warrior train,

Where spreads the Frizian's wide domain.
Now, chieftain, turn thee to the fight,
Or yield thee to the Jutish might.'

"Soon the tented halls among
Loud the din of slaughter rung:
Closer now each hostile band
Grasps the shield with eager hand,
And many a chief is doom'd to feel
Through helm and head the griding steel:
First in that disastrous plain
Guthlaf's valiant son was slain:
Where Garulf lies untimely dead
Many a fated hero bled.

There to seek his destined food,

The dark and willow-pinion'd raven stood;
And far around that field of blood

The sword's dread radiance beam'd to heaven:

It seem'd as though that morn had given

All Finsburg to the ravening flame.
Ne'er heard I yet of fight might claim
A nobler or a sadder name,

"At the high hall a chosen band,

Leaders brave that shine afar,
Full sixty sons of victory stand

In all the golden pomp of war:
Little think they to forego

The hall of mead for that proud foe.
Five livelong days the battle sound

Was heard by Finsburg's earth-raised mound;
Yet undiminish'd and unquell'd

That hero band the portal held;

Till, bleeding from the scylding's blade,
The city's lord his fear betray'd,

And told, in accents of despair,

How broken helm and corslet reft

Defenceless to the stroke had left

His head and bosom bare.

Then sought the vanquish'd train relief,
And safety for their wounded chief.*

Conybeare's Illustrations, p. 179. We must here observe, that the above version is very far from literal: it is rather a paraphrase than a translation; but it will certainly be found more pleasing than if it were nearly verbal.

The Ruined Wall-Stone.

The following fragment seems to be connected with the preceding; the "Ruined Wall-Stone," with the destruction of Finsburgh :

It fell

"Rear'd and wrought full workmanly,
By earth's old giant progeny,
The Wall-Stone proudly stood.
When bower, and hall, and citadel,
And lofty roof, and barrier gate,
And tower and turret, bow'd to fate;
And, wrapt in flames and drench'd in gore,
The lofty burgh might stand no more.
Beneath the Jute's long-vanish'd reign
Her masters ruled the subject plain;
But they have moulder'd side by side,
The vassal crowd, the chieftain's pride;
And hard the grasp of earth's embrace,
That shrouds for ever all the race.
So fade they, countless and unknown,
The generations that are gone.
Fain from her towers in spiry height,
From bower of pride and palace bright,
Echoing with shouts of warriors free,
And the gay mead hall's revelry;
Till fate's stern hour and slaughter day
Swept in one ruin all away,

And hurl'd in common silence all,
War shout and voice of festival.

Their towers of strength are humbled low,
Their halls of mirth waste ruins now,
That seem to mourn, so sad and drear,
Their master's blood-stain'd sepulchre.
The purple bower of regal state
Roofless and stain'd and desolate,
Is scarce from meaner relics known,
The fragments of the shatter'd town.
Here store of heroes, rich as bold,
Elate of soul and bright with gold,
Don'd the proud garb of war that shone
With silvery band and precious stone.
So march'd they once in gorgeous train
In that high seat of wide domain.
How firmly stood in massy proof
The marble vault and fitted roof*;

* Stan hofu stodan. A somewhat free translation!

Till, all resistless in its course,
The fiery torrent roll'd its course;
And the red wave and glaring flood
Swept all beneath its bosom broad.*

But the noblest of all the Anglo-Saxon poems is that of Beowulf; which, in fact, may be regarded as the most extraordinary production of the middle ages. It is the first attempt at epic or heroic poetry extant in any vernacular language of Europe. Whether it was written by a Dane or an Anglo-Saxon, can never, perhaps, be proved; but that it was written by an inhabitant of East Anglia, the peculiar seat of the Danes during the tenth century, seems undoubted. Whether it were a Dane or an Anglo-Saxon of that province, might, at first view, appear easy of solution from interval evidence alone; but such was the similarity of the two dialects, that either was perfectly intelligible to the other. It was, in fact, far easier for an ancient Dane to write in Anglo-Saxon, than for a modern one to write in Swedish, or a Spaniard in Portuguese. Probably, however, the Danes of East Anglia generally used the vernacular dialect of the island. We think the author was a Dane, because the poem exhibits an acquaintance with the history and tradition of the Jutes and Finns which no native could well possess; and an attachment to the people and scenes of the Jutish peninsula which no Anglo-Saxon could feel. What confirms this supposition, is the fact that the work contains none of those allusions to Anglo-Saxon history or manners which we might expect from a native. Yet Dr. Thorkelin, the editor of the only edition yet published †, is certainly wrong in ascribing it to a native of Denmark. In the first place, such a one was not likely even to know the dialect of this kingdom, much less to write in it with so much ease and purity. In the second place, the author was evidently a Christian ; yet Christianity was not the established religion of Den

*Conybeare's Illustrations, p. 251. Like the former extract, exceed ingly periphrastic. + Copenhagen, 1815.

,

mark prior to the reign of Canute the Great. Christians, indeed, there were in it a century before, but they were confined to the lowest of the people; and even they, as we may perceive from the life of St. Anscar easily reverted to their former idolatry. We know from the most unquestionable authority that the Danes who invaded this country in Alfred's reign were all pagans; that, at a period much later, one of the Danish sovereigns had been compelled to fly from his indignant subject merely because he had embraced the new religion; and that, even so late as 1012, when St. Elphege suffered martyrdom *, there was scarcely a Christian in the Danish camp not one except the few individuals whom he himself had converted. It was one of Canute's first cares to send English missionaries to convert his hereditary subjects. Now, the only MS. remaining of this curious poem is believed to be as old as the tenth century, long before the faith of Christ was diffused in Denmark but even if it be a century later, this fact need not change our opinion as to its antiquity. Who will venture to assert that it is the original that it is not a transcription from a more ancient copy? These two reasons the language of the poem, and the Christianity of the author; reasons which none of our critics appear to have weighed afford us the strongest possible presumption that it could not be composed by a native of the Scandinavian kingdom. The presumption is equally strong that the author could not be an Anglo-Saxon. It is, in fact, the work of one whose mind was remarkably conversant with the yet lingering traditions of paganism; traditions which, to a native, whose ancestors during four centuries had professed Christianity, must have long ceased to be known. For these reasons, we may, we think, safely ascribe it to some immediate descendant of the Danes, who in the reign of Alfred had been allowed to settle in East

* See his life in Vol. II. of this work.

† See Vol. III. p. 304.

Anglia, and who, we know, had been persuaded to receive baptism. But that, even in the time of St. Odo, Christianity was not universally dominant in that province, is sufficiently proved by the fact that his father was a pagan, and that he himself was disinherited for what no doubt the fierce old Dane considered his apostasy.* Still there can be no doubt that many of the inhabitants were true to the faith which they had so recently embraced. Among them, we think, was the author of Beowulf, whose mind, however, bears all the marks of a recent change of faith. In fact, he seems better acquainted with the spirit and traditions of the religion he had abandoned than of that he had embraced. †-So much for the country of the greatest poet that ever wrote in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The history of the poem itself is soon related. The MS., which is in the Cotton library, was first noticed by Wanley; but such is the indifference of the English public to literature, that, though it was cursorily noticed by Warton, it excited the serious attention of no scholar, until Mr. Turner, in his valuable History of the Anglo-Saxons, gave an analysis of it. That analysis, however, is by no means a satisfactory one; for, besides omitting the more interesting portions of the work, it is given in a style so rugged and barren, so inferior to that of the original, that it is exceedingly repulsive to the mere English reader. Great Homer himself would look very simple, if so translated, — may we not substitute, if so done?. into any other language. But this analysis has the still greater fault of confounding the events and the order of time, and thereby of distorting the whole course of the poem. The same objections will not wholly apply to the sub

See the life of St. Odo, Vol. III. p. 254.

+ We lay no stress on the arbitrary assumption either that the Saxon poem is a translation from a Danish original, or that it is founded on a more ancient work in our own ancient language. We think the arguments we have adduced are sufficient to account for the pagan spirit of the poem.

History of English Poetry, vol. i.